Stuck in an awful dead-end job? Try becoming embroiled in a plagiarism scandal! It worked for famous Harvard plagiarist Kaavya Viswanathan. She just got a sweet summer job at one of the most prominent law firms in the country.

About five Internet millenia ago Viswanathan scored a two-book, half-million dollar book deal while still in high school. This prompted a wave jealously-fueled scrutiny, which crested and broke in 2006 in the form of a massive plagiarism scandal: it was discovered that the precocious first novel she published while a sophomore at Harvard, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, totally ripped off another novel. Sure, she was publicly humiliated and lost movie deals and stuff. But things quickly took off for Viswanathan after that: Famous novelist Jamaica Kincaid advised her on her senior creative writing thesis at Harvard; then she was accepted to Georgetown Law in 2008. Now, Above the Law reports that young Viswanathan has completed her law degree and will head to New York this summer for a summer internship at Sullivan & Cromwell, "one of the nation's most prestigious and profitable law firms."

Award-winning novelist and memoirist Jamaica Kincaid, who couldn't countenance working for a…
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As ATL points out, Viswanathan's story bodes well for poor Harvard Law Student Stephanie Grace, whose racist email saga was chronicled in great depth on this very blog. The endless churn of the news cycle will spin your shame away, Stephanie! And, really, isn't that what's so great about America? In this great country, a Harvard grad isn't judged by their race, color, creed or past plagiarism and/or racism scandals. In America, Harvard grads truly are limited only by their own courage, drive and talent. Hell, we even have a Harvard grad in the White House.